Suspect Discussion - Noivern (Banned)

Discuss the possibility of banning Noivern from the ORAS LU metagame. Noivern is being suspected for its ability to threaten the metagame with it's high speed and easy to spam dual stabs with little resistance due to its useful move pool.

Make sure you post intelligently based off of experience in the tier. Posts based off theorymon risk forum infractions.

Attempt to find the checks and counters (or lack thereof) for Noivern as well as its impact and power in the metagame. Do not simply say "it's broken" or "it's not broken". Back up your arguments on why you think it should be banned or not.

Most importantly, elaborate on your points and try to think of counter arguments as you're posting. No one or two sentence posts will be allowed, and this will be strictly enforced.

If a consensus is reached, the result will likely be implemented in the metagame.

In all seriousness though Noivern is also an unhealthy presence in the LU tier thanks to its high speed, great offensive typing and very good movepool. I like to refer to it as a "hit-and-run" pokemon, due to the fact that it can fire off extremely powerful moves that your opponent needs to find a mon that would get 2HKOed or OHKOed and proceed to switch out because it doesn't really appreciate taking any hits. Unlike other hit-and -run pokemon such as Emboar, Exploud, Meloetta and Hitmonlee, Noivern posseses the ability to run a damage boosting item such as Choice Specs, Life Orb or even Expert Belt and still remain to outspeed practically all the unboosted metagame. It's coverage that contains moves such as Draco Meteor, Hurricane, Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Focus Blast, and Boomburst also further pushes its wallbreaking capabiltites in that there really isn't any safe switch in to this thing. It also can utilize useful utility moves like U-Turn and Switcheroo which the former lets it escape from it's checks and counters and the ladder letting it able to cripple any incoming walls tremendously if it runs a Choice Specs. The best counter Noivern has atm is Aromatisse and Sp.Def Alomomola (which is a shaky check tbh), these two really don't appreciate the current metagame which only further enhances Noivern's capabilties to wreck through teams, especially Offense and Balance. The only downside it has is that it;s defenses are not that great which leaves it weak to prority and that it has a SR weakness which limits its switching capabilties.

TL;DR: Noivern is an extremely fast and powerful wallbreaker that breaks down too many walls in the current LU metagame. It leaves players forced to run obscured checks and counters that aren't really relevant and effective right now, and it punishes passive aggressive playstyles. I definitely feel that Noivern should be banned because of this (and that we can start a Moltres suspect :)).

Moltres can be checked more easily by stuff like AV slowking and if it lacks HP grass by Rhyperior etc

Noivern is what I qualify of extremely good but criminally underused since it's one of the best mon of the tier.

I can potentially see 3 sets to talk of: Specs, LO roost and Stallbreaker

Specs: Between Draco Meteor, Hurricane and Flamethrower, Noivern has the ability to 2hko the whole tier, assuming it predicts correctly, Spe Def Mega steelix and Aromatisse are both 2hkoed which makes them check more than anything else. So far, I've found no real counter ( bar maybe Heatproof Bronzong which has it niche in the tier) and with trick support it can basically cripple any wall on the switch that is not a mega. Having 123 speed is very good, and 97 spe atk is decent ( it's almost celebi spe atk with stronger moves)

LO roost: This set can be more effective depending the archetype you face. If you're facing a little bit stallish, it will give you some roost on the switch which means Noivern can stay longer and make more wholes in your opponent team. It serves the same purpose the specs does but at the difference it hits a little bit weaker for more freedom to switch moves and not predict everytime

Stallbreaker: I don't know why this is not played anymore but it's a very good set in a tier where fat mons ( Slowking, Alomomola, Bronzong etc etc) are played. Basically, it runs Taunt/Roost and the 2 last moves can be super fang and air slash. It ain't played that much but it's very good if you want to break opposing stall, prevent defog and if you want to get through Bronzong who till now annoyed you. This set is very fun to use and I see no reasons in this tier to not play Noivern Stallbreaker.

Other decent options such as Scarf Noivern can be considered since they revenge kill Tyrantrum Jolly after Rock Polish which is a big deal on Offense but usually Specs/LO are way better in the meta. In my opinion Noivern is too much for LU and need to be banned

So, I guess I'll put a few things out there on what I think of Noivern.

There's only about 4 useful Pokemon that can be used in LU that can out speed Noivern and at least force it out from a glance: Accelgor, Meloetta-S, Jolteon, and Swellow. Accelgor doesn't have anything beyond using Final Gambit strategy to do anything to Noivern beyond being a minor annoyance to deal chip damage to it. Meloetta requires being in it's other form which means being out prior to Noivern coming in, or coming out after it uses Draco and them not having anything that screws physical meloetta over (which isn't a difficult thing on occasion to do). Swellow gets walled pretty easily so it's not something anyone should be using in the tier despite the fact it was LU just a while ago for whatever reason. Reasonably, that leaves Jolteon being a strong check to it as it can come in on Hurricane once or twice, and threaten with heavy damage since Jolteon isn't actually all that weak. However, Jolteon's versatility is best left to strong offensive styles.

Moving onto other possibilities, finding out that TR teams actually work fairly well in LU at the moment, they act as a good anti-Noivern strategy. Seeing as several setters don't mind the dragon, and can use it as a set up, it acts like Noivern's natural bane. Though you kind of would be forced to using some very specific setters on your teams to not just get demolished. Other than that, you kind of have to rely on various Scarf users to revenge/hope to revenge kill Noivern, and most of the common scarf users have mixed results with only a small group effectively dealing with Noivern.

That being said, Noivern is just an absolute wreck for all play styles in LU, but most notably balanced and high paced offensive teams. Noivern's access to two dangerous STABs and a combination of Roost/Flamethrower (or Focus Miss)/U-Turn makes for a really dangerous foe to play against. Dragon typing and not caring about it's attack stat leaves it able to Roost off bulky waters who could tank hits allowing it to switch out after recovering damages. It's capable of answering the common steel types in the tier with Flamethrower, so those aren't exactly counters to it, or using U-Turn to switch out of them to retain momentum which leaves several Pokemon useful partners to keep up an offensive front. Just speaking without heavy investment, and even then with the investment, almost every common steel type is at minimum 2HKO'd by Flamethrower except Registeel and Regular Aggron who thanks to rock typing tanks. Mega Aggron and Bronzong can tank 2 hits with heavy special defensive investment.

Specs - Can generally just spam high powered stabs against every general build and inflict massive damage, and face little repercussion due to the few pokemon who can tank the hits of Draco Meteor or Hurricane. The only bad side to it is that it needs to predict well, and not give turns to a certain few individuals who can use it as a set up for boosting speed after a -2 if it has to use Draco Meteor.

LO - Doesn't have to play as stingy as Specs has to since you can change your attacks on a whim, though you don't have the natural power. However, Noivern's ability to force switches mean that most any Pokemon who comes to take a hit is going to a massive chunk of damage. More or less you have to throw a Pokemon away to conserve one, and get another out to try and fear Noivern out which would most hopefully be one of our ice types like Mega Glalie or Abomasnow who thankfully have Ice Shard.

Long story short, Noivern makes for an excellent all game Offensive monster who impacts much of the tier to being more offensive than it should be and limits many of the options that LU has to bring a balance to teams. If its speed wasn't so great, and its movepool not as strong as it is despite having a decent 97 base special attack, I don't think we would be having this discussion. It's one of those Pokemon with ridiculous range that comes down to well luck sometimes or having a contingency for after Draco Meteor drops, and being able to immediately tackle an opponent's team and options.

Not a lot to add, Noivern was always a premium dragon in the tier, combining good offensive stats (123 speed and 97 SAtk), with High power STABs and coverage moves (Hurricane+DMeteor, FThrower, Focus Blast, even Boomburst can be viable for some neutral hitting w/o risking a miss chance). With these moves and a Life Orb/Specs equipped Noivern becomes really hard to stop (also the high confuse rate on Hurricane can be really frustrating), Steels usually resist both STABs but don't have reliable recovery (means they can't really switchin multiple times) and take huge damage from coverage moves, bulky waters usually have recovery but cannot tank properly Noivern STABs without big SDef investment and they need to carry an Ice move to be an actual threat to Noivern (a bulky water with high SDef investment carrying an Ice coverage move is a subpar set most of the time), cause Noivern can just Roost of the Scald damage (if not choiced version), and being ok, also Taunt can help Noivern to deal with these mons, negating their recovery moves (between bulky waters, only AV Slowking can be considered a nice Check, it has recovery in Regenerator, can carry an Ice move with some effort and has high special bulkyness to survive Noivern STABs). Also fairies can check Noivern (talking about Aromatisse and MAudino), but they both need high SDef investment to do this (252 SpA Choice Specs Noivern Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Aromatisse: 171-202 (42.1 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery, while Audino just need 52 evs to avoid 2hko, 252 SpA Choice Specs Noivern Hurricane vs. 252 HP / 52 SpD Mega Audino: 172-204 (41.9 - 49.7%) -- guaranteed 3HKO), but they can threaten Noivern suddenly with a STAB move, so they can be considered pretty "decent". The major problems with Noivern are prolly its capability to bypass its shacky checks u-turning to a better mate (I'm just thinking how can it be so good paired with Nidoqueen, that annhilates Fairy and Steel mons and help pressure bulky waters, and can even bring SRock/TSpykes support, or paired with a pursuitter to punish things like Slowking or Bronzong) and the difficulties to revengekill it (just Ice Shard users, and very fast Mons, 379 speed point is just so good, outspeeding things like Scarf Emboar/Pangoroo).

Summing up: very fast mon with high power moves, kinda difficult to find some good checks to it (Steel don't have reliable recovery and take huge damage from coverage moves, bulky waters are usually weak to Taunt/Roost Orb set) if you are not using suboptimal sets (like heatproof Bronzong, full SDef Aromatisse, full SDef Bulky water with an Ice move), can just U-Turn to a dangerous mate if a serious check is involved (Mega Audino/AV Slowking). Really threatening for offensive teams that has limited option to check it and some difficulties to revengekill it; I think that a ban should be the right thing.

Sorry this took a while y'all! Should have gotten done sooner as everyone is pretty much unanimously agreed on Noivern.

Noivern will be banned from the ORAS LU tier. Between specs, LO, taunt roost sets etc, its speed, power, versatility and coverage make it both an overwhelming threat in the tier and incredibly difficult to revenge or check in any play style in the tier, with the only thing really standing in its way being its own accuracy checks.